The Drowned World

Superflex's apocalyptic new work explores the path that leads from consumption to catastrophe.

Remarkably Flooded McDonalds at the South London Gallery fom January 16 — March 1 2009 is Danish art collective Superflex's first solo show in the UK. Superflex, comprising Jakob Fenger, Bjornstjerne Christiansenand Rasmus Nielsen, have worked for over 15 years on a wide range of projects that deal broadly, and distinctively politically, with global issues. Much of their work has been built around ideas of democratising production and consumption processes — as in their open-access TV channel Superchannel, their work Supercopy that challenges ideas of legal copyright, or the soft drink Guaraná Power they created with Amazonian farmers to challenge the stranglehold multinational beverage manufacturers on commodity prices. But Flooded McDonalds, the second in a series of new films is an example of their intersest in the relationships between global warming and our role as consumers.

William Shaw of RSA Arts & Ecology spoke to Bjornstjerne Christiansen on the eve of the opening of Flooded McDonalds.

It started out as part of a series of films we wanted to do, symbolic films that deal with current issues, incidents and situations from different places. The first one was called Burning Car. Then with Flooded McDonalds, we saw numerous possiblities of approaching some of the current global problems — global environmental change. so we wanted to try and make a response to this, a film that would open up serious thoughts around some of these issues.

With both the films -  I haven’t seen Flooded McDonalds yet - there seems to be quite an apocalyptic edge to it.

One could say that, yeah.  I think what first could come to one’s mind is, "What is it that causes flooding?" and, "Why in particular choose this food store?" and so on.  One thing was to try to bring a more personal perspective about this type of consumption; the consequences of these consumptions are very much related to individual consumption in our view.  

Of course climate change is also one issue that we wanted to point out with this.  But we wanted to try to keep it as open as possible, even though we chose a McDonalds. McDonalds is iconic for a certain type of consumption, but it was also trying to make a film that would give you the impression of these consequences. When you stand in the space in the exhibition you will be facing a projection that is 4m by 7m, which is quite an enormous experience. 

And then the flow of the film is basically following what happens with a building, with a restaurant, from the beginning till the end of it being flooded — slow movements — so you ould alsosee yourself in this situation, which for many is the worst nightmare. But at the same time in our culture also deals with a fascination for these, you could say, catastrophic situations.

Watch an excerpt from Flooded McDonalds here.  

With Burning Car, obviously you also chose an iconic brand, the Mercedes. With recent images of events in Athens [below] in mind, this seems to be far more about social unrest.

Sure it is. In that sense you can either say that all our films are about climate change or you could say they are trying to depict and look upon situations which we find important to discuss.  And the one with the burning car was very much looking at civil unrest today and the fascinations around this. How are these situations being represented in the media? During [the riots in France], interestingly enough, on maps used in the media, would say, "Here we have burning, and here we have burning"... It would always be cars that would be the symbol of it. Cars are private ownership; they are also expensive for a person that owns one. So as I said it might be a fascination and a kind of very direct act against, say, consumerism. 

But in the end the films are so open to interpretation that when we presented The Burning Car in Brazil for example people started talking about that for them it was very much the car and pollution that first came to mind.

This film is being exhibited at the South London Gallery, but obviously one of the things that Superflex were doing for a long time was Superchannel which was trying to broadcast films to a wider area. Can you tell me the thinking behind Superchannel?

The thinking behind Superchannel was initially - back in 1999 when we started the project - to try to open a kind of public space within media production. We saw that it was important to try to enable people on many different levels in our society to become proficient inmedia production because it would create an understanding of how this is produced and how imagery and meaning is produced, but also to empower different types of groups.

Specifically we wanted to change of the relationship between the producer and the viewer. So the viewer will as much become a part of each of the TV shows — they could interact — and so the people producing would have to respond to it. And this sort of thing is still not really happening yet, even though we can see things that are archived and can respond in chat rooms and so on. But the actual production is very much a one way communication.

Superflex famously describes these interventions as "tools".  Is there a sense that Flooded McDonalds is a tool?

No, no. There was a specific way of thought back then, trying to open up for a new way of looking at this type of artistic work that we are doing and also in that we want to have some work as invitations rather than just as statements or objects.  So, if we talk about a tool it will always mean that you can use it and many different things can happen with this tool that you cannot control.  So when you enable others to use it things start happening.

So with this film you could say that we tried to make it as open to interpretation as possible so people can bring their own views into it but we don’t consider it to be a tool.

Right, and so are you working on any tools in the line of the your Biogas project?

Yeah, three years ago we started a big project called Guaraná Power. Guaraná is a caffeinated berry that is produced in the Brazilian Amazon. We were there researching three or four years ago and we met a group of farmers and they presented to us some of the big problems they had. The raw material price had decreased over many years, so they were unable to survive from their farming. So we discussed some ideas about how one could deal with these situations, even though they would be far, far in the Amazon, we still thought that there would be a possibility of trying to confront those who control the market — not only as classical demonstrations and so on, but actually they become a citizen of the market. 

So what we did together with them was we developed a soda, a product, that would confront directly those who controlled the market prices, like the raw material prices. We produced a soda which would clearly make a comment on those brands who are controlling prices. This is a project that has been going on for a long time now. We produce the soda and the farmers are the owners, both making the raw material price and making a profit. 

A lot of your work does touch on this notion of globalisation in this way. I was looking at When the levees broke, we bought our house which is a piece of yours which is about the interconnectedness of the natural world and the global financial world. There is this person in New Orleans whose life is wrecked by Hurricane Katrina and the person in Denmark who benefits from the result of changing borrowing costs. Yet it’s a very simple piece of work, and it is a picture that you can encounter. 

Yes, yes. I think that Flooded McDonalds is more in line with that. It is not a tool but it definitely points in directions which makes you think about global economy but also how you can position yourself in that global economic system.

Part of your work on globalisation is about the ownership of ideas. You reference Lawrence Lessig a lot on this and there is work like Guaraná Power again, and Supercopy about the idea of free reproduction. Is using something like McDonalds as a bit of iconography also part of that notion of appropriation of ideas and freedom of ideas...?

No, not in the same sense. With this film we are not really interested in that conflict around ownership and rights and so on, because in general we think that any individual should have the possibility of commenting and reacting to those imageries and the kind of media imagery that you are being met with daily.  So it is not about ownership and so on here. I think it is more about bringing a possibility for people to look at some of the consequences from the point of view of our global economy but you could say at a personal level also.  And maybe here that’s where we are doing something a little bit differently in comparison to many of the others as this is very much about individual responsibility also in these situations 

Raymond Williams wrote, "To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing." Is there any sense in which these two films are actually about making hope possible, and also is there anything in particular that you are hopeful about at the moment?

Even though it is a destructive film in the sense that it shows destruction, I think there is a sense of trying to bring awareness into these situations and the consequences around them.  I always believe that when you bring forward these ideas that brings at least a big understanding of what goes on and in that sense you can talk about hope if you wanted to.  

We are quite positive guys, and we don’t like to criticise even though I respect that you need to to do more actions which are important. But I think that one can also create situations that can become even more affirmative working within systems and infrastructures. Like with Guaraná Power, you go in and enable people to take decisions and react constructively. So in that sense we see with examples like this, and there are many others around the world, that you can see positive futures and I find it fascinating that the farmers in the Amazon all of a sudden can make the right changes which have consequences for their own economy but also on the broader perspective.

Is there a piece of art that has made you change your mind about an issue?

One piece of art?

Yes.

I wouldn’t mention one in particular. We are inspired by many, many artists, as we are also inspired by economists and scientists and so on. I think that the important thing is that one keeps continuing and making examples and experiments that are challenging what one can consider to be the norm or what tries to be the norm in our society. So that is more my answer, I would say.

We have worked with quite a lot of great artists, like Rirkrit Tiravanija, and we are at the moment doing a big project with Simon Starling — he won the Turner Prize three years ago. We are doing a big show in Denmark opening up on the 29th. So there are many.  You can go even back to Andy Warhol...  But I more think that one should really try to engage experimentation and making examples and models. This way I think you can challenge all kinds of systems, politically and economically. If you don’t make examples then the machine just keeps running and being happy and self-fulfilled. And that is what one should challenge, always.

William Shaw is web editor of RSA Arts & Ecology.